and it is a shame
by lloydskywalkers
Summary: Lloyd isn't sure what hurts worse - Akita's teeth in his arm, or the face looking back at him. (Speculative angst for the Ice Chapter based on the episode summary leaks we got - BIG SPOILERS for those!)


**Trying to catch up with tumblr again ahhhhHHH - t****his is literally just speculation angst, guys. I read the leaked episode summaries for the last few episodes of season 11 and it hinted at this confrontation, so I just! I had to, for the angst. **

**If you haven't read the episode summaries yet, BIG SPOILERS! But they essentially hint that Lloyd is going to "find out the awful truth about Zane's fate" or something, and then by the next one Lloyd is in prison for the billionth time. So this is just taking that and running somewhere with it.**

**(Also I'm behind again on everything but the next Raising Hell update has like..two more read-through edits to go until posting, so that should be soon! It's clocking in at 12K right now so it's...a long one...heh...)**

**I'm sort of sorry for this. Ish. **

* * *

Lloyd isn't sure what hurts worse — the face under the helmet, or Akita's teeth in his arm.

"Let me at him," she growls, sharp teeth glinting in the eerie light of the ice palace. "Let me _kill_ him—"

"No, Akita, _don't_," Lloyd begs, his eyes smarting through the pain of where she'd bitten him. His fault, he'd stepped in front of her, but he couldn't just _let her_—

"He killed my brother!" Akita roars, writhing against his hold as she strains toward the throne. Vex watches in amusement now, instead of the wide-eyed terror he'd worn mere seconds ago.

"He _is_ my brother!" Lloyd screams back, refusing to let her go. The horror of his own statement threatens to choke him, but he fights it back, along with the spinning of his head.

_Zane, oh Zane no, is this why we couldn't find you—_

"Your brother," Akita spits, her shoulders heaving. "Is a _murderer_."

Lloyd shakes his head violently. "No," he denies, but his voice is thin. "No, Zane isn't — Zane _wouldn't_."

"Lloyd, _look_ at him."

Akita's voice isn't as harsh this time, and there's an undercurrent of sympathy in it, if Lloyd were to look hard enough. But he can't, not at the truth in her voice and not at the emperor. He can't see Zane like this, because it _can't_ be Zane—

The emperor's helmet lies discarded on the floor, where Lloyd had knocked it free mere seconds earlier. He'd been so close, _so close_ to sending a blade through him. So close to ending the reign of ice in this cursed realm.

The face beneath the helmet had stopped him dead. The same face they'd been looking for, the face that's lived in Lloyd's best dreams and worst nightmares these past weeks, the face of his brother, it was _the same face_—

"It's not him," he whispers. "Akita, he's not himself, he would _never_."

Akita's jaw tighten, and her eyes flash. "Lloyd—"

Ice suddenly erupts across the throne room, slicing in front of them as they fall apart with twin cries of shock. Vex's laughter echoes manically across the throne room, and Lloyd stares at Akita through a sheet of ice, his eyes as wide as hers.

The emperor is descending from his throne.

"Run," Lloyd says, his voice pitched high in panic. "Akita, run!"

Akita throws him a desperate glance, her face torn — then she shifts, the red and white features of a wolf solidifying, and she's off in a flash, darting from the throne room.

"Don't let her escape!" Vex howls, and the emperor's scepter lifts.

Lloyd catches it off balance with a burst of power, cutting off the ice in a shower of green sparks as he skids in front of them, fists humming with energy.

"Your fight's with me," he growls, glaring at Vex. "Now — _tell me what you did to my brother._"

Vex looks at him, then laughs. "I did nothing," he says, his voice derisive. His eyes glint, and there's the familiar crackling sound of ice. "Ask him yourself."

Lloyd is forced to dive aside as the emperor sends a wall of deadly ice hurtling straight for him. He rolls to his feet, pushing himself into a sprint.

He was wrong, Lloyd thinks as he races for the gaping doors, his thoughts tinged in hysteria. He shouldn't have gone alone. He should've brought the others, he shouldn't have come at all, he isn't prepared for _this_, how—

_Zane, how long have you been like this—_

Spiked structures of ice erupt before him, and Lloyd's forced to skid to a halt, slipping across the icy floor. He turns on heel, sprinting in the other direction — only to immediately meet a similar wall of jagged, glimmering ice.

Lloyd's breath catches in his throat. The ice keeps growing, throwing his own wild-eyed reflection back at him in gleaming kaleidoscopes of blue, and Lloyd is reminded of the Caves of Despair for a horrible second. He feels the same kind of helplessness threatening to overwhelm him, a despair similar to the crushing weight of Morro.

_No,_ he seethes internally. _No, this isn't the same_. He'll stop this, he'll free Zane from whatever's gotten him. He just has to get out of this stupid _ice_.

Lloyd's hand glows, and he sends his power hurtling at the ice in front of him, smashing a path open for him to sprint through. He can see the balcony of the fortress just beyond, and the swirling, snowy darkness of outside. If he can just reach it — if he can find Akita and get to the mech, then he can get back to the others and—

He misses the gleam from below him. A solid block of ice suddenly shoots up beside him, slamming into Lloyd's side and sending him sprawling to the floor, the wind knocked clear from his lungs.

Lloyd wheezes, curling in on himself as his ribs throb, his lungs sputtering as he tries to inhale. He finally coughs, drawing in a ragged breath of freezing air, tears pricking at his eyes from the burn.

With a flash of terror, it occurs to him that the air shouldn't be this cold. Not unless—

**"****You shouldn't have run.**"

Lloyd cries out in alarm, scrambling backward across the icy floor, frantically trying to put distance between him and the frozen figure. Heavy boots stalk toward him, and Lloyd's fingers scrabble desperately, fighting against the suffocating panic as he tries to light his power. Alarm is blaring through his head, making it hard to think.

A heavy boot comes down on his chest, pressing against his already-aching ribs, and the alarm screeches into a crescendo.

Lloyd shoves desperately, cracking his head against the ice as he struggles to throw him off.

"Zane, come _on_," he croaks, through blurring eyes. "This isn't you."

**"****I am not Zane,"** the emperor rasps. **"Zane is no more. Only the ice."**

_That_ hurts worse than his ribs do. Fury lights in Lloyd's chest, and he grits his teeth and _pushes_, green bursting to life from his fingertips and blasting the emperor off his feet, sending him flying across the icy room.

"_Liar_," Lloyd hisses, trying to regain breath from his aching chest. He staggers to his feet, sweeping his glowing hands before him defensively. "I know Zane's in there. Give him _back_."

The emperor slams his frozen scepter to the ground, using it to push himself to his feet slowly, his head raising. His face is twisted in cruelty, hateful where it turns to Lloyd, but it's the eyes that chill his blood.

There's no warmth in those eyes. There's no light, no kindness, none of the familiarity that's Lloyd's brother. It's as if someone's froze him over and sucked all the Zane out, leaving a cold, empty husk wearing his face behind.

Lloyd wants to cry.

"Zane," he whispers. "Who _did_ this to you."

Lloyd will blame his own stupid hope for what happens next. He's hesitating, waiting for an answer that will never come, because he can't _blast _his_ brothe_r—

—when the emperor darts forward, knocking Lloyd's blast aside before he can throw it, his hand locking around Lloyd's wrist, holding him in place.

Ice immediately begins to spread where the emperor's hand grasps his open skin, misting and sharp and _burning_ with how cold it is. Lloyd yelps in pain, struggling to yank his arm from the icy hold. But the emperor's grip is iron, unflinching and unyielding, and Lloyd can only watch in horror as the ice spider-webs across his arm, slowly snaking beneath his gi and across his skin, crystalizing the blood seeping from his wound as it freezes. He cries out in a mix of pain and panic, clawing in vain at the hand with his free arm.

"Zane, Zane let go, Zane _please_—"

The ice continues, climbing higher and higher, sewing agony into Lloyd's veins as he writhes against the freezing hand, twisting vainly away. He finally kicks out at the emperor in frantic hysteria, crying out at the pain slicing through his arm.

The ice falters as the pain does. Brilliant blue eyes suddenly dart up meet his own tear-streaked ones, and Lloyd's breath catches in his throat. He barely manages to get out the name, in hope.

"Zane?_"_

The emperor blinks. For a second, Lloyd sees confusion there — as if one waking up from a long sleep. The grip on his hand loosens, the burning ice halting. A shaking hand passes over the frozen face, and the emperor's head drops, his eyes shadowed.

There's a hoarse, quiet voice, frightened and confused.

"Lloyd?"

Lloyd's heart almost bursts. His face threatens to split with the smile of relief that breaks across it. "Zane!" he gasps. "Zane, it's me, it's Lloyd! We came for you, we're here to take you home, everyone's—"

The hold around his arm tightens. Lloyd's heart drops.

"Zane?" he whispers.

His head rises. Any warmth Lloyd had hoped to see in his eyes has vanished, frozen out by the pale, icy blue. A cruel edge sets back into his mouth. It's the only warning Lloyd gets before his hand switches, releasing his wrist before shooting out and locking firmly around his throat.

Lloyd chokes, a strangled gasp escaping as he claws at the hand suffocating him. He's unable to gain any leverage, his fingers blistering against the icy hold, and Lloyd fights back tears. Dark spots burst at the edges of his vision, and sounds muffles out in a high-pitched buzzing that rings in his ears.

A hazy part of him wonders if this was what it was like for the others, with Morro. If this is how it _hurt_, seeing the face of someone you love _used_ like this.

_Zane, Zane I'm so sorry—_

A half-second before darkness claims him, the hand loosens, before finally releasing entirely. Lloyd drops bonelessly to the floor, unfeeling of the freezing ice beneath him. His vision blurs, fuzzing at the edges as it fades in and out of darkness, unconsciousness threatening with every strangled breath his abused throat manages to choke in.

**"****He will be useful."** The emperor's voice is rasping now, harsh and scraping. **"In time."**

"Throw him in with the other prisoner," he hears Vex's voice bark, taking over for his emperor once again. Cold hands lock around Lloyd's arms, hauling him from the floor, and he sees more than hears the slide of Vex's sword, threatening him if he tries anything.

Lloyd couldn't if he wanted to. It's as if the cold's seeped into his very soul, biting and draining and leaving him hollow. He can barely keep his eyes open as they drag him to the depths of the palace, his vision fading in and out. It doesn't matter — his thoughts aren't of escape, anyways.

_I'm so sorry, Zane_, he thinks bitterly._ I couldn't save you this time, either. _


End file.
